Jayson Orvis, the author of the post-apocalyptic thriller, has a 300-acre doomsday compound matching the theme, according to a report from PEOPLE. Orvis has spent more than a decade on transforming the property located in Bountiful, Utah, into a self-supporting sanctuary which can shelter 200 people in the event of a civilisation-ending catastrophe. If you’ve been watching Homestead on your phones and TVs, beware that there is more of where it’s coming from. The property, home to the multimillionaire, his wife and three of his seven kids comes with a complete armoury, a machine shop, greenhouses, butchery and a massive storeroom filled with everything from medical textbooks to portable radios and leather-working tools.
The location is also the set for his similar themed TV show, Angel Studios’ ‘Homestead: The Series’, which recently returned for Season 2.
The 57-year-old entrepreneur’s property also boasts a “food forest” that grows fruits and vegetables without pesticides or synthetic fertilisers. “We have more asparagus and raspberries than we can pick,” he told PEOPLE. “We don’t have cattle, but we have wild deer, turkey, elk, goats, rabbits and chickens — natural meat that lives a full life and then we harvest it,” he added. “We’ll be super well defended and we’ll also do the best we can to share and to help our neighbours along,” said Orvis, who calculated that the group could survive “indefinitely” on their cache of supplies and what they can cultivate from the land.
“We had a garden and food storage, but we didn’t have goats, rabbits, chickens and all this,” recalled Orvis’ wife, Pamela, 57. By then, Orvis had already begun transforming his massive property into a paradise for the point of no return. “So Jayson started digging into it. Before long, everything just snowballed and we took it to the next level.”